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It appears that my Windows 10 PC is sending out unusual data to the internet. Reasons why I believe this:

  • I often (about once a day) get a ReCaptcha Turing Test when I search something on Google (i.e. before showing me the result, Google wants me to complete the Turing Test, saying it wants to confirm I'm not a "bot")

  • My Wi-Fi internet access on my PC frequently goes offline. Then I have to click into the "Internet Access" Wifi icon (pic related enter image description here), and re-connect, and it usually reconnects in a few seconds. I've noticed this happens more frequently when I access Twitter.

I brushed off all of this earlier, but now am seriously concerned that there's some app (malware?) in my PC that's sending out too much data to the internet, and that's causing all this.

  • So, am looking for software apps that can help me investigate which apps are sending out data to the internet, and how much.

  • Plus, would like to investigate anything else that you, the esteemed reader, recommends I investigate.

  • Said software apps need to be Portable because my PC is locked down (it's a work PC) and I do not have the admin access to do a proper install of software. Unfortunately my work admins are generally clueless and having dealt with them before, I believe that if I told them about the issue described in this post, they won't do anything about it.

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The reason that google is giving you the ReCaptcha test when doing searches is explained on this support page. While it could be your computer performing “automated traffic” as google puts it, it could also be another computer on your companys network, or a previous holder of the WAN ip address of the network.

If you want to look at your PC’s network traffic you should be able to use “Resource monitor” which is built in to Windows if you simply want to monitor packets in/out per. proces. Your workplace might have restricted its use though.

Doing anything more in depth than that, like checking where the traffic is going, could be done with wireshark packet capture, while wireshark is available as a portable app it requires administrator privileges and a driver to function properly so that won’t help you.

So if resource monitor is unhelpful you might have to resort to asking your it people who will have access to your network hardware.

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